MUMBAI : HT Media Group has found its new rainmaker in the South. Swapnil Ravindran has been appointed chief revenue officer (CRO) for South, a role that will see him drive growth across Hindustan Times, Hindustan Hindi, and Mint. Ravindran, who took charge in August 2025, brings a two-decade career spanning Yahoo, Inmobi, The Times of India, and Kasturi & Sons, with a strong record of scaling revenue engines across print and digital. At HT, his mandate is clear: accelerate revenue growth, deepen advertiser relationships, and integrate strategy across platforms to bolster the One HT narrative in southern India.
It’s a homecoming of sorts. Ravindran spent a decade at HT Media (2005–2015), rising from deputy manager to general manager. Since then, he has helmed sales at Yahoo, led national digital and print mandates at The Hindu Group, and spearheaded e-business and branch verticals at The Times of India. Most recently, he was associate vice president and response head at Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (Nov 2024–Aug 2025) and before that, director of sales (West & South) at Inmobi.
Over the years, he has managed marquee brands, sharpened sales strategies, and built high-performance teams skills now directed at expanding HT Media’s footprint in one of India’s most competitive regions.
Armed with a PGDBA in Marketing from VIT (1999) and nearly 20 years of leadership across advertising sales, business strategy, and digital transformation, Ravindran is expected to play a pivotal role in powering HT Media’s South operations to new heights.
From Yahoo to Hindustan Times and back again, his journey is a story of full-circle ambition only this time, the brief is bigger, bolder, and distinctly southern.
The HT Media Group has relaunched its flagship brand Hindustan Times in an all-new digital-first avatar. The English daily, with a legacy of over 96 years and a total readership of eight million across India (TR, IRS Q4’19), has undergone a complete re-design that addresses the multi-platform shareable news consumption habits of today’s generation, particularly the millennials.
The refreshed HT product portfolio, including HT City and Brunch, is replete with elements that offer seamless print to digital integrations. It further gives the readers more than what is available on just the print medium via QR Codes, video pointers, links to podcasts and photo galleries that direct the readers to HT’s digital platforms to experience, engage and express more.
In terms of the new design elements, HT has launched its new logo that is classic yet contemporary, evoking the credible legacy that the brand brings to its modern-day readers. The thoughtfully crafted crest captures the journey of the brand from ‘quill to cursor’ and the values the brand has embodied since its inception in 1924 – ‘Clarity and Credibility’.
HT has also unveiled its new positioning – First Voice, Last Word. It represents the ethos of the brand with its continued promise of credible journalism, especially in today’s information-addled world. While the First Voice alludes to its digital-first agile approach, which is always the first to raise issues faced by the citizens today, the Last Word captures the essence of journalistic excellence associated with a credible, trusted and respected news brand.
Dentsu Impact, the creative agency from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) India, has worked on the integrated campaign of the relaunch. The campaign maintains a sharp millennial focus in the messaging and design contours.
The campaign film showcases a young woman addressing to the camera about how the audiences today are being fed with broken news that does not make anyone wiser. She attacks the format in which the news stories are broken, discussed and disintegrated on social media platforms, and debated further in evenings leaving anything but the truth aside. Towards the end, she brings to fore the HT’s positioning of ‘first word and last voice’.
“The media landscape has undergone an immense transformation in the past decade and despite the testing times, Hindustan Times continues to make strides as a market leader to give the ‘news consumers’ what they are seeking and how they are seeking it. This refreshed product fits the fast-paced, knowledge-seeking needs of the millennials without alienating the older generation who are also fast adapting to the new ways of news consumption. We are extremely excited about this new offering and are certain that this raises the bar for the news industry in our country” said HT Media Ltd group CMO Rajan Bhalla.
Dentsu Impact CCO Soumitra Karnik added, "Our focus was to make this campaign around the brand new format of HT; not just the design part of it but the core idea of becoming the most authentic news source available to its subscribers across all platforms. The new generation of news seekers are seeking absolute truth in the news they consume. They are tired of sensationalism; they are asking hard questions about the current state of journalism and they are expressing themselves freely and fearlessly across all platforms. And It is this relentless quest for the truth that we have tried to bring to life through a hard-hitting and thought-provoking narrative, voiced by the young and impactful social commentator, Aranya Johar – a representative for the responsible and aware millennial. The all-new HT is a fantastic product. The newspaper is interactive that impeccably integrates the print-to-screen reading experience.”
BENGALURU: Indian print, digital and radio media group HT Media reported 2 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in consolidated revenue for the quarter ended 30 September 2019 (Q2 2020, quarter or period under review) as compared to the corresponding year ago quarter. The HT Media group revenue (includes HT Media Limited and another publicly listed subsidiary Hindustan Media Ventures Limited) increased by Rs 9 crore in Q2 2020 to Rs 580 crore from Rs 571 crore in Q2 2019.
HT Media Group consolidated operating margin (EBITDA) more than doubled (grew 139 percent) y-o-y by Rs 47 crore during the quarter under review to Rs 81 crore from Rs 34 crore in Q2 2019. Consolidated loss halved (declined 51 percent) y-o-y to Rs 22 crore in Q2 2020 from Rs 22 crore in Q2 2019.
Radio Business
The HT Media Group had acquired a 51 percent stake in Next Mediaworks (NMW) in the last quarter of 2019. The HT Media Group reported 27 percent y-o-y growth in radio revenue in Q2 2020 due to NMW – radio revenue increased by Rs 13 crore to Rs 59 crore in the period under review from Rs 47 crore in Q2 2019. However, the company says that radio revenue ex NMW declined 7 percent y-o-y in Q2 2020. Operating EBITDA of the Group’s Radio Business declined by Rs 3 crore or 22 percent y-o-y in Q2 2020 to Rs 12 crore from Rs 16 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.
Some of the radio brands of the HT Media Group include Fever 104 FM, 94.3 Radio One International and 102.7 FM Radio Nasha.
Print Business
HT Media Group’s overall Print Business revenue declined by Rs 14 crore or by 3 percent y-o-y in Q2 2020 to Rs 438 crore from Rs 452 crore. Print Business operating EBITDA increased 516 percent or by Rs 40 crore y-o-y during the period under review to Rs 48 crore from Rs 8 crore.
HT Media Group’s overall Print ad revenue declined 6 percent or by Rs 21 crore y-o-y in Q2 2020 to Rs 342 crore from Rs 363 crore. Overall Print Business Circulation revenue reduced by Rs 5 crore or declined by 7 percent to Rs 66 crore in Q2 2020 from Rs 72 crore.
Print – English Ad revenue declined 6 percent y-o-y to Rs 203 crore in Q2 2020 from Rs 217 crore. Print -English Circulation revenue declined 8 percent to Rs 17 crore in Q2 2020 from Rs 18 crore.
Print – Hindi Ad revenue declined 6 percent y-o-y to Rs 139 crore in Q2 2020 from Rs 147 crore. Print Hindi Circulation revenue declined 7 percent y-o-y during the period under review to Rs 50 crore in Q2 2020 from Rs 54 crore.
Company speak
HT Media and Hindustan Media Ventures chairperson and editorial director Shobhana Bhartia said, “Slowing economic growth has hit advertising spends in key categories, putting pressure on revenues across the media industry. As a result, our Print and Radio (on like to like basis) businesses saw revenues dip as compared to a year-ago. However, thanks to lower commodity prices and a tight control on costs, we saw an improvement in our operating profit. On the digital front, Shine, our online recruitment portal has shown good progress and continues to grow. Our outlook for the coming quarter remains cautious, given overall economic sentiment and macroeconomic trends. Cost-control and falling commodity prices should help protect our margins.”
